Question

John watson offered a live, white rat to little albert and then made a loud noise behind his head by striking a gong with a steel hammer. after several pairings, the child came to fear the white rat. the white rat served as the __________ in his study.

Answer 1

The rat was the conditioned stimulus. Albert was conditioned to fear the rat because it was always paired with the loud gong in the background. While he did not fear the rat initially, the gong sounded enough times to where he paired the two events as a single occurrence.